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It's been a while since I've done a renovation update - things do not move now at such a cracking pace, as they did just before Christmas when we were in the big push to move into the new extension. There are not such dramatic progress pictures, so I'm not taking so many photos. But I thought it was a bit overdue. So... here's what's been going on.

The slate has been completely laid outside, and it looks fantastic. We're so pleased with it, and we've put our very weathered teak outdoor dining setting back in place under the outdoor dining area (which goes well with the grey tones), and had the Swingrest swingy- chair rehung. I did a bit of styling last weekend when we had friends for dinner on Saturday night with a topiary and some hurricane lanterns, and if you squinted and ignored the mess behind in the 'garden', it looked lovely. Especially once dark and the candles were lit (and the garden was a blurry dark shape in the background).

Inside, the hanging laundry maid was installed by the builders for me - it's fantastic. I highly recommend one. One of my pet hates is having airing racks around the house with laundry drying on them, but this means you can hang it up straight from the machine, and then by hoisting it up off the floor to the ceiling and it's fairly unobtrusive. When clothes are on it it's high enough up that you can easily walk under it, and it's not visible through the open door from the main living area. Here's a photo of it with the sheets on to give the full commercial laundry feel.

We've had some more lighting installed, at long last. The art light was put up over the painting in the dining area. The brass tones of the LED light work really well with the gold tones in the frame. I still have to find a more appropriate pair of lamps for the table - they have to be fairly low line so that they don't interrupt the painting too much. The current lamp is enormous, so it's actually throwing off the scale in the photo above.

In the powder room/ guest loo (whatever you want to call it!) the handbasin has at long last been installed. We're now waiting for the wallpaper guy to make an appearance and put up the wallpaper. Annoyingly I made an error with my measurements for the wall panelling - I took the overall height of the handbasin based on a standard handbasin height, forgetting that this one has a bit of a curvy splash back thing on it, so sits higher. As a consequence it comes up and over the moulding at the top of the dado panelling. Not ideal, but I wasn't going to start ripping it all out, or source a new handbasin for it, so we'll live with it. It's doubtful anyone else would notice it - it's just another thing on my list of 'imperfects'.

Down in Mr AV's home office (or as he now calls it his Study, which is confusing as we have another room we call the study, and which he is not trying to make us all call the Library... except that problematically all the books are still in boxes in the shed) we've had the trellis installed over the mirror and the grate made up and installed at the top of the light well to stop people from falling in. We are waiting for the electrician to finish hard wiring the sump pump in, and then will put pebbles into the base of it (to allow water drainage and cover up the concrete). This little trick of the eye convinces you that you are actually above ground, rather than in a subterranean cave. Mr AV still needs the lights on during the day, but with the play of shadow and light from the lightwell and the reflection from the mirrored trellis, it feels really quite nice down there. Certainly, he's very happy.

Here's a photo of Mr AV's desk set up - he's decided to put it against a wall, rather than facing out, which would not be my preference, but it's up to him. We've had the desk for around 8 years - it's Scandinavian and from the 1920's. The chair that goes with it is in the picture above, but we've bought an Aeron office chair for him to use day to day. Yes, his desk always looks like this, and he works from home a few days a week. He is very neat - it's a running joke with a couple of his friends that they'll move a pen on it to see if he notices. He also got a new desk light for his desk - there's still a lot of furniture to put in this space (sofa, side tables and credenza, things for the walls), but that will happen gradually. This is no instant decorating blog, I'm afraid. We like to wait to be able to afford nice things, and for the perfect item to present itself, rather than buying filler pieces that we throw out in a few years.

The landing on the stairs down to the cellar and Mr AV's cave was tiled too. The risers are going to be filled and painted (they are currently raw concrete).

S finally moved into his bedroom - we were waiting for the blind to be installed, as there was no point putting a 3 year old into a room to have him up with the sun at 5.30 am. So he's finally moved in, and is a little bit so-so about the whole thing, despite the initial excitement and having chosen his colour scheme, wallpaper and fabrics. He misses sharing a room with his sister, and will frequently sneak back into her room after being put to bed to chat to her. She, however, is delighted that she finally has a room to herself, having shared since she was 1.5 years old with one or the other of her brothers.

The matching seat cushion for his window seat is on its way... apparently. I haven't bought the new big boy bed for him yet - I had thought perhaps the transition to a new room might be made easier by having the same bed, which is a toddler bed. But he was very unhappy to find he did not have a new bed in there - so we may speed that purchase up.

And finally, we've had a big clean up of the 'garden'. The builders spent 2 days clearing out all sorts of rubble/ rubbish/ timber offcuts etc etc and another large skip was taken away. And I then spent 2 hours last weekend trying to weed the edge garden beds and prune the hedges. Mr AV had the whipper snipper onto the overgrown grass, but we've got a long, long way to go. I'm going to call in the landscapers to quote to get the lawn put down sooner rather than later - the dust tracked into the house is pretty terrible. Plus there's a very limited space for the kids to play. I haven't bothered to take photos as the before and after are far too similar to feel remotely satisfying. So instead, here are some gratuitous shots of the ceiling lantern in the living area. Still the best thing in the new extension. I just love the light in this space.

So that's pretty much it for the time being. A lot of the other bits of progress aren't visually exciting - silicone drying around window panes, the steel stair enclosure under tarpaulins in the back garden etc don't make for great photographic imagery. Hopefully I'll have a bit more slow progress to post in another couple of weeks! I will however come back and do a review of the kitchen appliances this week - I know from the google search results and comments that the kitchen design is a big area of interest, as are the appliances.

You're easy to please Tabs, your husband is a lucky man if a tap is a good significant birthday gift!The swing chair is SO comfortable - unfortunately the children like to turn it into a nest or cubby house, so we don't get much of a look in! xx

Well, it all seems to us to be coming along wonderfully well. There is obviously a great attention to detail by you in every respect and that does show. The choice of accessories is so important and you are clearly prepared to wait until the perfect thing is found. In the long run that is definitely the best we think and saves money into the bargain.

The lantern is brilliant. It clearly floods the room with natural light and also adds a great sense of height. Such an imaginative approach and surely this will become a favourite spot for all the family.

Hi Jane and Lance, thank you for your kind comments - they say the devil is in the detail, and I certainly feel like that has been true of this project. The ceiling lantern is something that I just love - it gives a very special quality to a room to have light on four sides, and I'm so glad we kept it. There was a lot of discussion over the past few years about whether to keep it in the plans, and it was a pain to work out the engineering etc, but worth it in the end (as are all things you work hard for!) xx

Everything looks amazing Heidi, love it all. The light well in Mr AV's cave, I mean study, is fabulous - what a clever idea. That swing seat looks very inviting - what a great place to kick back with a refreshing G & T. Hope you have an enjoyable long-weekend. Jo xxPS Loved your scarf post too - better late than never!

Thanks Jo, the light well has turned out surprisingly well - he loves the room, and being underground it's really quiet, which works well for his work. Such beautiful weather this weekend - hope you're having a good long weekend too xx

I just love your gorgeous house! Wishing very much just now that I lived in Aus rather than Canada. MrAV is very very tidy, that's incredible! You should see MrBP's office, we own a small heritage building 3 blocks from our home which is very handy and thank goodness MrBP doesn't work from home as he is a cyclone in his office. It often looks like a bomb of paper went off in there, and this is with his full time personal assistant and weekly professional cleaning.I avoid going there as I find it a bit upsetting.Your outdoor space is divine. It will be lovely to have the grass down and that will help immensely with mess tracked in, you need that space asap for the kids! Thanks for the update Heidi I always enjoy it and looking forward to the kitchen appliance post. Have a great weekend.xox

I'm sure you would like to live in Aus rather than Canada with your endless snow this year! Now that the weather is pleasant (as in, not over 35C) we are having a great start to Autumn. Mr AV is a surface neatness person - we drive each other crazy over it. He gets annoyed by my piles of paper (waiting to have something done to them), but he will have a clear desk and everything has been shoved into a drawer with no order.... If you ask him to find his tax return from 3 years ago, he has no idea where it is, whereas I'll be able to get it out in seconds. Hopefully we'll have the grass down sooner rather than later. Have a good weekend Dani! xx

It's all come together so well and your outdoor area is looking so inviting with the fabulous swinging chair. The first time we viewed our current home the Sheila's maid (in a good sized laundry room) was a great selling point particularly with our UK climate. A light and airy living room was another plus and I can understand why you are so pleased with the ceiling lantern.

Thanks miss b - I think those sheila's are so clever. I remember seeing them everywhere in the UK, but they've not been popular in Australia for some reason. After living in the front (Victorian) dark part of the house for 3 years, the light has been quite a revelation. xx

The handbasin was cheap as chips - $129 from Recollections/ Early Settler! All the equivalents that I saw were $1500 plus! We're having great weather now thanks smr - saw those crazy storms in Sydney that you had on the news - certainly made for some spectacular photos. Hope you weren't caught in the middle of it! xx

It is all looking so good Heidi! I love ceiling lanterns - I love them so much that I even put one in my last home as a single woman and I never tired of it and I bet you will enjoy that feature and never get sick of it. The mancave is so chic - love the desk and he is very neat indeed! Are you guys eating out on the terrace every night? I notice that the swing even has a side table! So cool. All that brass is amazing and I can't wait to see the loo finished. Those taps are so pretty. Funny we have one of those hanger things but it is in the garage and gets no light so doesn't dry so we have to either dry in the machine which takes forever or hang them in a spare room but I also hate the sight of it...PS so cute about the little one sneaking back into his sister's room xx

Aren't you clever to put one into your last place.. gathering that wasn't a flat in London then? We are having lunches on the terrace a bit, but it's been too windy at night. We have the gully breeze (a cool wind that comes through Adelaide from the hills) most evenings, and it can be a bit chilly/ windy. S is not finding the transition to his liking. He also spends a lot of time coming into our bedroom in the middle of the night to tell me he can't sleep, not realising he's been asleep for a very long time already! Hopefully he'll settle down soon. Certainly E doesn't want him back anymore (visiting is Ok, but not as a permanent resident)! xx

I am currently in Cape Town Heidi as I read this!! I am SO impressed with the progress as I have been a bit out of touch! I really love what you've done and that ceiling lantern is amazing! You are so clever in capturing light .. especially in Mr AV's "study"! We are now moving in on 1 April and I am communicating via text/email with the builders etc and holding thumbs that all is going smoothly! Have a great weekend! xx

How exciting that your move in date is so close Jenny!! I can't wait to see how it's all come together (as I'm sure you are too, given that you're away for the finishing details). Hope you're having a wonderful time en famille celebrating Mr R-I's birthday. xx

Heidi,I will continue to encourage you to consider writing as an (additional) career pathway somewhere/time in your future. Did you attend the Writers Week in Adelaide this year? The Corner Cafe is near you, isn't it?? They serve up a wonder pancake stack (photo on my blog) if you ever feel like indulging.Thank goodness the weather is a little kinder here now. April is my favourite time of year here in the Adelaide Hills.CheersMelody

Hi Melody - you're very kind about my rather amateur writing! I didn't get to any of the Writers Week this year, and given I went to talks last year in pretty awful heat, I feel somewhat ashamed of myself! I didn't know you had a blog - will pop over and check it out tonight. Agree with you re the heat. I'm SO thankful that we haven't had that awful blast we usually get in March, and the city is looking beautiful and green thanks to that torrential downpour a couple of weeks ago. We've just had friends for lunch that are here from interstate for Womadelaide, and they couldn't believe how green and pleasant everything was. Enjoy the long weekend. xx

Looking fabulous!!! I have questions ...(apologies if you have answered these previously)... 1. Who is the artwork by that you have lit up? And 2. Love the idea of hanging washing up high but I'm curious to know if it creates a lot of dampness that might lead to mouldy corners in the laundry room?! We are tight on space where we are and would love to have one.

Hello anon, the painting is by Kate Bergin - she is an Australian artist based on the Sunshine coast. I don't think you'll have a problem with mould with the airing rack as long as you've got a bit of ventilation, just like in a bathroom. In this case having an open door into the playroom would be enough - the air is warmer and fairly dry up that high to the ceiling, so the moisture from the laundry isn't enough to cause mould unless you had a very closed off and small laundry I'd think. Hope that helps! xx

C'mon Heidi, you're an architect, I think its time for some "post result justification" on the pedestal basin - let me have a go "The lines of the pedestal sit within the framework of the paneling but the interplay between the curved lines of the splashback against the rounded but straight panel edge subtly interject a play on the forms and add a dynamism to the space"Your house looks so good, it looks beautiful but also a really happy family home.

Haha Cybill! You've just taken me back to crit sessions at Uni - I'm having flashbacks to a week of all nighters and then crumbling before a panel of my peers while trying to pretend I was influenced by some obscure Architectural theory to justify a flaw they've picked up on in my design! It is a happy house - having all the light and space now has made it much more harmonious too. xx

Ooh Heidi! It is looking superb! The outdoor patio looks so very inviting and your new lantern ceiling is, well, just wow! I think what you've done to get natural light in mr av's 'study' is exceptionally clever but am reassured (!) even the most brilliant forward thinkers can make wee errors like the powder vanity height. (Which I don't think anyone else would think amiss if not alerted to it by you). To have achieved all this with a young family is truly a credit to you. Good luck with enticing more excitement for his new bedroom from your little boy; that he prefers his sisters company speaks highly of their bond which is lovely. X kl

Thanks KL - glad I've made you feel better about errors! I sometimes hesitate whether to point out things like this on the blog, but I think we can all learn, and I'm certainly not perfect... there are a few other errors, nothing too dramatically bad thank goodness. You can spend so much time fretting over something like this, and ultimately no one else notices or cares. S and E are very close, and play beautifully together. Hopefully even though they are not sharing a room now that bond will continue. xx

I am with Mr AV on the desk/wall thing. I spend too long starting out the window otherwise.

I must admit though my desk looks like a tip though - the rest of the house is tidy but my desk is a big fat mess!! I'm a bit better at work but only because my favourite receptionist tidies it for me!

I think you need a swing chair of your own on the farm - would be perfect under a veranda looking out over the paddocks (although perhaps that wouldn't feel so restful for the Farmer??)I think you are staying true to your profession with the messy desk T! I'd bet that a lot of your handwriting is illegible too?? Hope all is well in your world xx

Your home is looking beautiful, I love your updates. You are very talented. I love the hanging laundry maid and will looking into getting one for our laundry. I think the guest loo dado looks like it was meant to be that height and it fits in nicely. You are very lucky to have such a neat husband, mine has is stuff spread out over a couple of rooms and can never find what he is looking for. Are you going to enter your work in any design awards?

Thanks Louise Jane, I'd definitely recommend the laundry maid. The only thing is that you need to use a bit of muscle to hoist it up when it's full of wet laundry! Mr AV keeps a neat desk, but it's all surface neatness - he can never find anything because he has a tendency to shove it all into files/ drawers/ a random box. He just likes it to look clear! Not sure about entering design awards. To be honest it's not the sort of renovation that would be likely to win awards - it's not fashionable in Architectural circles as there are too many traditional overtones (such as the pitched roof etc). xx

Ahh - but we've not done it entirely by ourselves and with crook backs/ knees etc etc. You've managed to do quite a lot when you look at it that way! Hope you are seeing a bit of progress at home this long weekend though Millie.xx

Heidi your laundry is just ingenious with the adjustable air racks - such a brilliant idea. It is all looking so gorgeous and your outdoor area looks perfect with the tables and chairs and Swingrest chair xx

Thanks Fifi! It's nice the outdoor area is all coming together in time to enjoy it for a few months before Winter hits us. Hope all is well with you - have missed your lists (and being able to comment on them!) xx

Everything looks fabulous - I love all of it! The Swingrest is just stunning. The light well down into study is so ingenious, and the laundry maid is brilliant. We were at the Art Gallery of Ontario earlier today and there's an art school wing where they run classes and kids' camps. They have a giant version of the laundry maid, except it's a metal rack with hundreds of coat hooks, suspended by a series of wires. They lower the rack to let kids hang up their coats, and then raise it put the coats out of the way and open up the space.

Thanks Louise! How fantastic for the art gallery to invent something like that for the kids! I love an interactive area for kids in an Art gallery - our local gallery has colouring in sheets in the cafe for the kids, and an area for them to produce their own work revolving around the major exhibition that's on... when the Turner exhibition was on, the kids all got to produce their own Turner style drawing (in the case of S it was very interpretive!!) xx

You have done well Heidi. It is all coming together so nicely. I think I could happily sleep on that swing chair. I spied one early last week in a window display, and was tempted to road test it! Cute that your 3 year old is sneaking in to his sister's room at night. x

It's very easy to fall asleep in... or to feel a little seasick if the kids are pushing it around vigorously! It's been 2 weeks, and S is still not 100% settled in his new room yet! Hopefully soon... xx

You've got such a good eye with all the finishes like the stripes wallpaper and the butterflies and am loving the texture of the concretey looking tiles. I love how you have a modern and layered look which really makes a house into a comfortable home. Oh that swingin' chair!

Hi Jenny, it's from lifestyle clotheslines online. Here's a link to the actual producthttp://www.lifestyleclotheslines.com.au/7-lath-pulley-clothes-airer/You can get smaller lines though too with 5 or 6 laths if you have a narrower space. I couldn't find anywhere else locally other than ebay that stocked them. xx

I just discover your blog now Heidi and I love love your decoration. Your house looks about all what I like....Sorry for my bad English, I am French.For sure, I am going to follow you from now..Best regards,